Papanatsiou signs JMD for ‘plastic money’ transactions lottery

Deputy Finance Minister Katerina Papanatsiou on Thursday signed a joint ministerial decision (JMD) for the launch of a monthly finance ministry lottery that will hand out cash prizes to tax payers for transactions using plastic money.

The lottery will reward lucky winners for their transactions with credit or debit cards, distributing winnings of 1,000 euros to 1,000 tax payers each month.

The JMD puts the Independent Authority for Public Revenue’s electronic governance directorate in charge of organising the lottery, while the lottery “tickets” will be the records of the tax-payers’ transactions using electronic payments in the previous month.

The system will seek to give incentives for “low-value” electronic transactions and will be open to all persons over 18 with a tax registration number. The prizes will be tax free and not count as income and will also be exempt from seizure or any other charge, either for the state or any third party.The cash prizes will be credited to the bank account declared by tax payers.

The purpose of the measure is to combat tax evasion, since tax payers will have an incentive to use their credit/debit cards for their transactions.